Thread: "the leaf"

Hi Ivan, this is 19mm ply and I have then glued and screwed the ribs to the base so it should be ok. I also had to keep the weight down for transport as it has to go from Newcastle on the coast near Sydney to Alice Springs almost dead centre freight costs are sure to be an issue.

Ah those crazy Russians, that is just fantastic, when you see something like that you realisse how clumsy and coarse your own work is (not yours, mine) I might pop him an email and see if he speaks any English.

E.M.C Newcastle 13/14% E.M.C Alice Springs 7/8/9% any possible shrinkage problems?
Hardwood.

Yes, I will screw the segments and have slotted holes rather than glue, I have pretty dry timber and this is the best time of the year here for me to be making this. Form now on the humidity should be lower rather than higher. The copper angle will also give me a way to cover any shrinkage similar to a flashing. The segments are individualy not very wide (accross the grain) so we are only talking on average shrinkage at 1% which means each segment may only shrink by 2.5mm (on average)
I may give it some air conditioning drying to see how it performs.

Segments, segments, got them all roughed out and sitting in place, except for the Red Gum one, it is tough as nails and about 50mm thick. I have rough cut around it with the circular saw, I will thickness it down to my 20mm target before inflicting it on my little 14" band saw. Tomorrow I will thickness them all to 20mm and then start to snuggle them into each other. The true colours of each piece aren't showing yet, some are still just rough sawn. So far so good.

C/H, I realize I'm getting ahead of your work, but am wondering what finish (if any) you propose applying to the copper. Will it not turn green, with age?

soth

Hi Soth, I would like it to be just brown tarnished not bright copper, if it is bright when I get it which it should be I will tarnish it with some flux or the like. Once its a nice browny bronzy colour it will get a wipe with turps and Estapoled with everything else. Copper will not usually go green unless its outside or wet so on a dining table it would normaly just stay brown anyway.

Originally Posted by Claw Hama

Ah those crazy Russians, that is just fantastic, when you see something like that you realisse how clumsy and coarse your own work is (not yours, mine) I might pop him an email and see if he speaks any English.

Don't worry , Claw - you can put my work along with all the rest of the coarse and clumsy ones , compared with Valeriy's work it's hard not to feel like this. If you find out he doesn't speak English , and need anything translated from the link I posted , I'll be happy to translate it.
The leaf is getting more interesting-all those timbers aregoing to look just great when finished , waiting to see more pictures

Enjoying the show Claw, looking excellent mate

Yes, I think the watching Ewoks are well pleased.

Just came across this thread. Neat looking build, Claw

Thicknessing 30mm off the redgum will be fun! Pity you can't resaw it...

Cheers,
Dave

Looks fantastic so far

What kind of base? and how are you going to do the steel.

It's nice when things start to come together and they look the way you want. Called in the client to check where the timbers/colours are, all good, thrilled. Got all the segments thicknessed and started to trim them in and get rid of the gaps. They don't have to be perfect due to the copper angle letting me get away with a few little sins. Tomorrow I will finish trimming in and then look at fixing the segments in place. I will most likely just screw them into place on a temporary basis for now, I will have to fit the copper angle to each one and solder into place. The segments will be attached permanently at that time.
Lig, the base is the 19mm ply with the ribs for support, once all the segments are in place I will run a timber strip right round the outer edge, it will be approx 40mm high and 6-8 mm thick. I will have to bend it round the curves and then some sort of concealed fixing (4" nails should do it). This should help stiffen the whole thing up. The original plan was for timber legs, then the clients decided they wanted tubular steel legs, powder coated which isn't a problem but I think timber would go better with the table so at some point down the track I will see how my powers of persuasion are.

The pain in the butt with this project is that I am going to have to shelve it for about 5 weeks while a do another one that has a dead line. I will work on this untill Friday and then start the new one. It isn't all bad though, it will have time to relax after cutting all the timber and then thicknessing some of them from 45 - 57mm down to 20mm. I try and trim around the same off each side to keep the stresses equal but a few weeks to relax will make it safer in the long run. I will save the final sanding and leveling till then.

5 weeks eh, I'll wait.

Originally Posted by Claw Hama

Lig, the base is the 19mm ply with the ribs for support,

Sorry, should have made myself more clear. I meant the legs